Hell

Hell (also known as Scorpion's Lair and Hades in the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis ports of UMK3) is Scorpion's original battlefield and a stage in the Mortal Kombat fighting game series. It debuted in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. In here, an opponent can be uppercutted into a pool of lava nearby.

It was never clarified if Hell and the Netherrealm are one and the same, or if Hell is just a part of the dark realm. However, in several instruction booklets of earlier games, it is often referred to as "Earth's Hell," further confusing the matter.

The same diabolical arena reappeared in Mortal Kombat Armageddon. Resembling some parts ofScorpion's Lair, this arena is still situated in the hoary Netherrealm. Surrounded by boiling lava, skull pillars and jagged structures, kombatants took place in ferocious battles here on multiple levels after each opponent gets knocked out and then thrown down into the next level of the Netherrealm. Hell returns in Mortal Kombat (2011), with a darker, updated look from Ultimate Nortal Kombat 3. The changes made in the arena is that there are less skull pillars, there is smoke and a hell beast in the background, the skulls glow with sparks and lava and there are lit skulls on the ground. This arena can also be seen in Scorpion's Victory pose in the game. In the Mortal Kombat 2011 version of Hell, a Stage Fatality can be achieved forcing the victim's head into lava, burning the unfortunate soul's face off with their eye sockets leaking molten rock, screaming in horrible agony.

Film and TV appearances

Scorpion's Lair was featured in the film Mortal Kombat. After fighting Johnny Cage in a forest on Shang Tsung's island, Scorpion teleports both Cage and himself to an unspecified location, "welcoming" Cage on arrival, before continuing the fight. Cage manages to defeat Scorpion and escapes the dark place with his life. The arena is lit red and contains seemingly endless, randomly arranged networks of wooden bridges and scaffolds, along with the skeletons and weaponry of dead warriors.

In the TV series Mortal Kombat: Conquest, the same location is shown using stock footage from the 1995 movie along with new footage. It is here that Scorpion recruits fighters for his organization and it is implied that after his defeat in the episode "Warrior Eternal", Scorpion 'fell' through the Earth to this dark place.